


Nothing is ever truly over

by trillasuduri (Witcherology)



Category: Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order (Video Game)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Post-Canon Fix-It, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-18
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-12 18:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21480790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Witcherology/pseuds/trillasuduri
Summary: Trust only in the Force, his Master had told him. But what was he to do when the Force was connecting him to his mortal enemy?
Relationships: Cal Kestis/Second Sister, Cal Kestis/Trilla Suduri, Cal Kestis/Trilla Suduri | Second Sister
Comments: 52
Kudos: 290





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> as you can probably guess, this is a fix it fic, which means it contains SPOILERS for the game. read at your own risk.

Cal still had nightmares about Nur. The sheer terror on Trilla’s face as that dark phantasm approached her, her words before she died.  _ Avenge us _ . She had turned to the light in the end. She hadn’t fought, hadn’t ran. She’d simply accepted her fate.

It filled Cal with anger.

Ever since he’d touched her lightsaber and saw what happened, almost as if he was experiencing it himself, he’d felt an inexplicable connection to her. A pull that kept tugging him towards her, and she towards him.

It was absurd. She’d been his mortal enemy. She’d killed Prauf and countless others, hunted Jedi and conspired to bring the Holocron to the Emperor… And yet, something in him was almost sad that she’d died.

He couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if she hadn’t.

* * *

If he thought he was done with the Inquisitorius now that he had nothing to give them, he was soon proven wrong.

The Seventh Sister appeared one rainy night, a spectre of the Second Sister as she’d been that night they met. Cal couldn’t help but compare both fights later, in his head. As skilled as the Seventh Sister was, she had nothing on Trilla. Trilla had been ruthless yet precise, her fighting style the perfect mix of elegance and raw power.

It would be nice to say this was the first time he’d thought of the Second Sister in months, but that would have been a lie. The truth was he thought about her often. His sleep was still plagued by dreams of her, but sometimes he saw her without her Inquisitor uniform, wearing a hood to cover her face. He had an inkling suspicion these were more than mere dreams, but he didn’t dare talk about them with Cere. He was afraid of what she might say, of what they might mean.

He found out soon enough. One night, as he was about to go to bed, he felt a shiver travel up and down his spine, and the Force tugging at him again, more strongly this time, almost insistently. When he looked around the room, he gasped: his chamber seemed to have disappeared, and instead he found himself in a cave, its walls dark and netted with luminescent veins.

And then he saw her. She was there, right in front of him, alive. She looked the same as she had in his dreams, except the hood no longer hid her face. She was unmasked and unarmed.

“You’re dead,” he managed to say. This had to be a Force vision, or something similar, no matter how real it felt. Yes, he could feel the cold of the cavern in his skin, but it had to be a dream.

She didn’t seem surprised to see him. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

Every one of Cal’s senses was telling him this was no vision. She was real, as solid as he was.

“You’re really alive?”

She sighed. “You always did have the wits of a scrapper.”

It  _ was  _ her. Cal almost laughed.

“How?”

“Does it matter?” He noticed her hands for the first time. She was holding a kyber crystal, bright and new. Cal frowned. What was she planning?

“Are you going back to the Empire?”

She laughed, a hollow, empty sound. The sound of it reverberated all throughout the cave.

“So they can torture and kill me? No, thanks. I signed my death warrant the moment I listened to you and Cere back on Nur,” she said bitterly.

Cal gulped, feeling her anger. She looked up and their eyes met.

“What is this?” she asked then. “It’s like we’re being…”

“Pulled,” Cal supplied, without meaning to, the words leaving his mouth of their own accord. “I think it’s the Force.”

“I know it’s the Force, nimwit, haven’t you felt it? It’s been connecting us for a while.”

Cal rolled his eyes at her words. “Of course I’ve felt it.”

“Then you know this is no ordinary trick. I can see your surroundings. You’re in that drab ship of yours. And I can hear footsteps… Cere, perhaps?”

Suddenly afraid, Cal reached within himself, searching for a way to break the connection. To his relief, when he opened his eyes again Trilla was gone, and he was alone in his room again.

The experience had been so intense, though, that it had left him drained. He was still getting himself together when Cere knocked on his door.

“Cal,” she called from the other side. “Time for dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Shaken, Cal lay down on his bed and tried to control his breathing. Whatever was happening, it was nothing he couldn’t handle. He’d fallen for the Second Sister’s tricks before — it was true — but she’d seemed sincere when she’d spoken about leaving the Empire. Cal had  _ felt _ it.

Trust only in the Force, his Master had told him. But what was he to do when the Force was connecting him to his mortal enemy?


	2. II

Cal didn’t tell anyone what happened, not even Cere. Something in him still refused to admit the Force was connecting him and Trilla, even though he knew in his heart it was real.

So he went about his life, continuing to rescue people from the Empire, doing his best to sabotage their plans together with his friends and allies.

He tried to ignore the strange pull that kept drawing him to Trilla, wherever she might be. He could feel it always: an invisible string, tying them together, drawing them to each other.

And then it happened again.

This time he was in a temple, surrounded by murals and artifacts from times gone by, when all of a sudden he sensed her presence. He turned, and there she was: staring back at him coolly, hood lowered, her outfit blending in with her dark surroundings. She was in some sort of armory, a place someone had abandoned long ago. The sharp tang of metal was overwhelming.

“Where are you?” she asked him curiously. Cal could feel her interest grow as she took in his surroundings. “Looks like an ancient ruin… Copero, perhaps?”

“Where are  _ you _ ?”

She shrugged. “Myar. Outer Rim.” She smirked at the look of surprise in his face. “What? Didn’t think I’d tell you?”

Cal had never heard of it, but he knew she was telling the truth. He could feel it. He didn’t know what to think. “What are you doing there?”

“This.” She showed him an inconspicuous helmet, made from a brown alloy so dark it was almost black. “Blaster and lightsaber resistant,” she supplied, turning the helmet over in her hands.

Cal’s hand instinctively went to his lightsaber.

She rolled her eyes. “As predictable as ever. If I wanted to hurt you, you’d already be dead, scrapper.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“You’re not my enemy anymore.”

Cal took a breath. There it was.

She was telling the truth, again. She hadn’t lied once during their entire conversation.

Moreover, he could feel her fear, her loneliness. She really was running from the Empire, just like him.

Just as he was getting ready to ask her something he’d been dying to know ever since their encounter on Bogano, she disappeared, and he was alone again.

The experience left him as drained as last time, the strength of their connection had been so overpowering. He could still feel it. And somewhere across the galaxy, she was there, feeling it too. It was a disquieting thought.

Perhaps it was time to talk to Cere.

* * *

He found Cere in the living space of the Mantis, relaxing on the sofa. She looked as if she’d had little sleep since Nur. Cal knew he’d been selfish, not telling her about Trilla’s survival, but he hadn’t known how she would take it. Still, she deserved to know.

“Cere, can we talk?”

Her gentle smile filled him with guilt. “Of course. Is anything troubling you?”

Cal took a seat next to her. He tried to find the right words for a moment, then realized there was no right way to tell her about this. She simply needed to hear the words.

“Trilla is alive,” he began. “It’s hard to explain how I know, but… I’ve seen her, talked to her. The Force has connected us somehow.”

Cere stared and stared at him, eyes wide, before her gaze turned downward. “I suspected as much. Somehow, I’ve always known she was alive.” She met his eyes again. “But what do you mean, you’ve talked to her?”

Cal explained what happened, sparing no detail. When he was done, Cere was stunned.

“I’ve only heard of that kind of bond happening between a Jedi Master and their Padawan. But you’re both strong in the Force, so I suppose it’s possible. The Force must be connecting you for a reason.”

Exasperated, Cal asked, “What could possibly be the reason?”

“That you must find out for yourself, Cal.”

Cal didn’t want to find out the reason. He wanted it to stop.

* * *

It didn’t stop. The next time they met, she was in a dingy room that smelled of dirt, covered by a shawl. She was shivering. He was sitting by the fire, having made camp somewhere on Aria Prime.

“I can feel the warmth of the fire,” Trilla said, not meeting his eyes. “Can you feel how cold it is here?”

Cal could. He could also feel her freezing.

“Come closer to the fire,” he found himself saying.

She regarded him with suspicion before she approached. She did it cautiously, hesitantly, as if she expected Cal to jump to his feet and attack her any second. She stopped at a safe distance, close enough to feel the heat coming from the fire, but as far away from Cal as she could manage.

“This is a decent fire,” she allowed after a time. Coming from her, that was a compliment. She’d stopped shivering now, but her face was sallow and drawn. For the first time, Cal noticed the damage the fight on the Fortress had inflicted on her: pale and thin, she was but a shadow of what she’d been.

She’d been tall and arrogant once, but the woman in front of him was different. Her rage and aggression were gone, replaced with a quiet but burning melancholy. It made Cal’s eyes fill with tears.

Startled, she raised her head and looked at him as if she could sense what he was feeling, what they were both sharing.

For a moment, neither of them spoke. All they did was feel the electricity between them, that mysterious energy that passed from him to her and from her to him. Cal took a deep breath. He’d never felt anything quite like it. It was as if they were one being, breathing in unison.

Cal needed to be distracted from it.

“Why didn’t you kill me on Bogano?” he asked her, his voice a whisper. “You already had the holocron, and I was incapacitated. All you had to do was strike me down, and I’d be dead.”

There it was. The question he’d been dying to ask her ever since that day.

She considered him for a time. “You had my lightsaber.”

It was a poor excuse, and they both knew it. “I’m sure you’d have managed without it.”

She laughed. “True. I suppose you could say I was curious.”

Looking into each other’s eyes caused Cal’s whole body to hum with the electricity of their bond. Cal ignored it. “Curious about what?”

“Perhaps… a part of me wanted you to see what happened. To learn the truth for yourself.”

Cal could sense something more hiding under the surface, but he could not say what it was. All he knew was that she was telling the truth, again. But why?

“What do you want from me?”

She blinked. “Nothing. It’s you who seems to want something from me.”

Cal opened his mouth to deny it, but the words wouldn’t come. And before he could think of what to say, she was gone, vanishing like smoke.

* * *

_ It’s you who seems to want something from me. _

Did he? Cal pondered the words over and over. It seemed to him she’d already answered his questions, even if she hadn’t done so in detail. What could he possibly want from her now? An apology?

Yeah, right. Like that was ever gonna happen.

No, he told himself, if he wanted anything from her, it was to find out what she was up to, in case she presented a threat to him and his friends, or to somebody else. If she was, it was his duty to stop her.

It wasn’t until late that day that he realized the truth: he didn’t know what to do in a world where Trilla was alive, and not chasing him.


	3. III

An uneasy sort of peace settled over Cal in the following days. He kept expecting Trilla to show up, either in a vision or in person, but she never did. He was left alone with his ruminations, thinking of where she might be, and what she might be doing, and with whom.

Above all he wanted to know what was going through her head. That way, he reasoned, he’d be prepared the next time he saw her.

But their next encounter still caught him unawares.

He was enjoying the smell of the rain on Alderaan when he felt her presence. He turned around, heart beating fast, and the sight of Trilla stole his breath away. She looked peaceful lying there amidst the flowers, her green eyes the same shade as the grass underfoot, her hair spread out around her like a dark fan. She turned her gaze towards him, but said nothing.

Cal could feel her breathing, slow and ragged, her heart hammering in rhythm to his.

“Trilla,” he whispered, mesmerized.

Their eyes met, the air charged with tension and promise.

“Cal Kestis.”

“What are you doing?”

“Dying,” she replied simply.

Trilla sat up, and for the first time Cal noticed the blood and felt the pain. She was hurt. He looked around, searching for whatever it was that had done this to her, but the field of flowers was endless and there was nothing beyond the horizon. She was dying alone, he realized, her brand new lightsaber in her hand.

“Where are you?”

“Naboo. I thought I’d be safe here,” she said, her voice a mere whisper. She was weak—Cal could feel her slipping away. “But they found me.”

“Who did?”

“The Empire. Who else?”

Cal swallowed. It didn’t seem fair, for her to have survived what she had only to die now. He could feel the bitterness, but also the peace, how she’d accepted her fate, resigned herself to it.

He hated it.

“Are you just going to give up?” he asked her. “That’s not like you.”

“There’s nothing to be done,” she replied. “It’s the end.”

He had no idea what possessed him to do it, but suddenly he was reaching out, across galaxies and stars and the universe itself, and his fingers were grazing hers. The touch was electrifying and it filled him with terror and wonder all at once.

“Don’t give up,” he said softly.

Her eyes were wide. “How—”

“Keep pressure on the wound,” he instructed. “Send me your coordinates. I’ll come and get you.”

“Why?” she managed. Her breathing was ragged and slow, and Cal could feel her pain as if it were his own.

“Just do as I ask, Trilla, please.”

He could only hope he wouldn’t be too late.

* * *

The Mantis landed on Naboo at sunset, and Cal practically jumped out of the ship as soon as it did. If the coordinates Trilla had sent them were right, she should be very near.

He found her lying on her back, deathly pale, eyes closed. For a second he feared the worst, but then he realized she was still breathing. He picked her up gingerly and carried her to the Mantis, where Cere helped him put her in a Bacta tank.

He spent the rest of the night by the tank, watching her breathe and heal. He couldn’t explain what kept him there, only that he felt the need to stay. Their connection—which had felt so powerful yet ethereal—was still there, more intense than ever. If he were to explain it, he’d say it was like reaching out and touching the Force itself, and being touched by it in return.

By morning, Cal had fallen asleep on the floor beside the tank. He awoke to the sound of the Bacta tank hissing open and the sight of Trilla stepping out of it. She looked completely recovered… and nearly naked, covered only by the small white suit the tank came equipped with.

Averting his eyes, Cal asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Alive,” she answered, her voice hoarse. There was an uncomfortable pause, and suddenly she was laughing. “What’s the matter, Kestis? Never seen a naked girl before?”

“You’re not naked,” Cal countered without looking at her.

“Ah, so you  _ did  _ look.”

“I’ll go get Cere,” Cal muttered.

* * *

Cere was relieved to see Trilla was well. Cal suspected that despite everything, she wouldn’t have survived losing her again. Merrin and Greez, on the other hand, seemed perplexed that Trilla was so important to Cal.

Not that she was  _ that  _ important. It was simply better to have her around where they could keep a close eye on her than having her out there. Besides, their strange bond hadn’t gone away—they needed to investigate that, too. Needed to understand what it was so they could get rid of it.

And Cal  _ needed  _ to get rid of it. Needed to stop feeling her pain, her sorrow, her bitterness. Needed to stop whatever it was that existed between them.

Before it consumed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the delay and the rather short update. but i really wanted to give y'all *something* after such a long wait... i've been terribly busy so it's been hard to make the time to write. the next chapter shouldn't take so long, though.
> 
> as usual, you can find me @jeditrilla on twitter and tumblr. 💖

**Author's Note:**

> \- thanks so much to elle aka @besaidvillage on twitter for proofreading this for me. ily.
> 
> \- sorry it's so short, i wanted to feed my fellow shippers asap. but dw, it will be updated soon.
> 
> \- You can find me at:  
twitter: @[witcherology](https://twitter.com/witcherology)  
tumblr: @[witcherology](https://witcherology.tumblr.com/)


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